Moving

For once I have a legitimate reason for not writing: I have moved!  From Bloomsbury to Vauxhall.  Moving is hard.  First you buy the plastic boxes, then you bring them home, and then you try to entice your stuff to hop into the plastic boxes--and your stuff is  always so much smarter than that.  It knows much better than to climb into a perspex box where it will likely never get to stretch out on a hanger or snuggle in a drawer again, and where it will probably get musty and start to smell like a lavender moth ball.  My stuff is particularly brainy.  It evaded the plastic boxes and refused to fold up nicely and wouldn't go without a fight.

After weeks of sunshine, it naturally rained on the day of the move.  My grumpy stuff got wet.  Of course my shoes and books took the brunt of the damp weather.  My waterproof bath stuff did not get rained on at all.  But now my books and shoes and bath stuff and dresses and birthday cards and pajamas are all here in Vauxhall.  And so I am writing.  Writing a plum bean and writing second book.  Second book got ignored during the move but has reasserted herself in my brain and is quashing thoughts of suitcases, unpacking and laundry.

And: it felt like such a treat today: Nell got a lovely review!

A Month!

It has been a month since I wrote a plum bean.  A strange wonderful crazy month.  I have written, gotten stuck and then written again.  I am about to move house which unravels writing fairly conclusively for a few days.  Somehow the act of getting all my belongings into plastic boxes and from one flat to another is utterly outfoxing me.

Nell received a wonderful treat today.  Natalie, also known as Coffee and a Book Chick wrote a lovely review.  I was thrilled.  She said that Nell had prompted her to spend hours on the internet noodling around 17th century theatre.  How absolutely marvellous that she had that reaction.  I love the Restoration and so often it gets overshadowed by the grisly can't turn away from the beheading train wreck  of the Tudors.  I understand that.  Kings bumping off brilliant wives and changing the course of religion is compelling stuff. So it is especially wonderful when the Restoration gets discovered and explored.

So, tonight is the Manic Mommies Book Club interview.  I am absurdly worried about getting the access codes right and actually finding the interview.  Having had relatively little experience in a normal job (working on the Vagina Monologues was brilliantly, wonderfully abnormal--not everyone has vagina puppets on their desk) I have some anxiety around fax machines and conference calling.  Absurd, I know but there it is.  Wish me luck!

Italy!

The Italian cover!  Nell goes to Italy...

Piglet

"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh?" he whispered. 
"Yes, Piglet?" 
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "I just wanted to be sure of you." 
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

I have been thinking about things not said.  I love this quote.  I love the simplicity.  I love that nothing is spelled out but that feeling of safety, friendship and returned love is utterly captured.  

I have been thinking about how good writing works.  How to write a feeling without explaining the feeling.  How to grab a moment and make it sit still long enough to become perfectly realized.  It is not easy to do.  I think it is all about recognition.  That is the root.  To see yourself in a character or room or time or place or awkward situation pulls you into the writing.  It becomes familiar, personal, meaningful, important, yours.  I know that feeling.  I know the small moment of cocooned relief Piglet feels holding Pooh's hand.  Such good writing.

Home to the Sun...

I love it here.  I really do.  London in the spring is is a city of green postage stamp squares, blurred by pale fluffy blossoms and brushed in pastels.  It is a blooming, stunning city.   But, it does lead to some eccentricities.  The warmth is fleeting and tenuous and does not visit the shade.  The rain is quixotic and cold and lands in puddles and then gets thrown around by buses that move disturbingly fast.

I wear sundresses in the warmest part of the day but in order to do that I have to carry a heavy bag with me.  Inside the bag are 1) a book--always--a bit like Linus and his blanket, 2) clothes--lots of clothes: socks, tights, jumpers, jackets, hats and a scarf.  As the day cools down I put on more and more layers until the summer dress is lost under a whole sheep's worth of wool and underpinned by heavy boots and topped off with mittens.  The effect is bizarrely Victorian.

This lovely city also holds so many of the people I love best in the world.  The easy, short hand communication of long broken in, lived in, much loved friendships is a marvellous thing.  On Saturday, Sadie and I decided to nothing but watch movies.  We went to the HMV in Victoria station and bought movies and then spent the evening at her house tucked up in the sitting room, utterly happy.  When I am back in Hawaii, in another life, a million miles away, I will remember nothing of what we talked about and everything about that happiness.

Yesterday, I was on a bus on my way somewhere else and suddenly I did not want to go somewhere else.  So, I hopped off in Vauxhall and called my friend Dan who lives just there.  He cooked a roast and I sat on the sofa.  It is a magical precious thing to spend random, ordinary, unhurried time with old friends.  It makes me want to stay.

But I have that restless, about to go feeling that comes with a flurry of changed tickets and frantic packing.  It is almost time...  

Answers on a Pogo Stick

I woke up this morning at five am.  Unusual for me if I am not jet lagged.  I have been rolling a writing problem from the second book around in my brain for a while now.  Not a huge problem; not a messy problem but a niggling wiggling problem that creeps up on me when I am brushing my teeth.  And at five am this morning, the answer appeared.  Bang, like a gift on the doorstep.  Boxed, ribboned and addressed to me.

I was astonished.  I have never been a writer who expects the answer to come bouncing along on a pogo stick.  I believe in making a decision and if sixty pages (yes sixty--this actually happened while writing Nell) it is the wrong decision, go back and unravel it.  I find an odd sort of comfort in the mechanical workmanship of writing.  Sounds dreadfully unromantic but there it is.  I like the piecing and puzzling.  Puzzling is such a good Dr. Seuss word.

But here it was.  The answer was simple, manageable, small but important.  There was not enough city.  Not enough huff and puff and clip and clop.  Not enough hustles and bustles and cobbles and cakes.  And so I am putting them in...

Hist Fick Chick

Lovely, lovely Allie at Hist Fick Chick reviewed Nell and invited me for an interview!  Kind, incisive, thought provoking and generous, it was a delight.  Her blog is brilliantly meticulous about historical detail and I love that. What a wonderful thing to find on a pretty spring Saturday morning...

pages written this week: 28!  Getting there...

The Eclectic Reader

I did a guest post for wonderful Teddyree at her wonderful blog,The Eclectic Reader.  Her question was, "If you could be dropped into a novel as any character, who would you be and why?"

It was actually not an easy question as I quickly realized that many of the novels I love most do not go terribly well at the end...

And marvellous Linda at her marvellous LindyLouMac Book Reviews  wrote a lovely, lovely review of Nell!  Both she and Teddyree took the time to transfer the trailer and Nell images onto their blogs.  I am always so touched by that.

It is Tuesday.  It is spring.  I am reading a brilliant but darkly unnerving novel called Privilege and I have cut my hair super short again.  So far, a good week...

Bits and Pieces

Ariel, a dear friend of mine from college left me a lovely note at the end of my last post.  She is reading Nell and is enjoying the under-written quality of the emotional landscape.  It was a wonderful thing for her to write.  It is a big risk to just leave breadcrumbs scattered on the forest floor and hope they bring the reader to the gingerbread cottage heart of the book.

I find I am constantly battling a strong desire to leave enormous glaring, flashing, obvious, neon signs along the way to prevent any mishap and collect any stragglers.  'Battling'?  That makes it sound like I am riding into mighty combat with a three headed writing beastie, but that is a bit how it feels.  I am currently writing about a lesser known person but a more famous period in history.  The three headed writing beastie wants me to print out google maps for the readers so no one gets lost in the forest.  Tricksy stuff...

And, I wrote at the end of my last post that I had tea with the utterly lovely Philippa Gregory.  She astonishes me.  I love when historical accuracy profoundly matters to historical fiction authors.  They really will fall down the rabbit hole in order to track down the particular historical details that make the writing so rich.  I find that is a common thread with all of my favorite historical writers.

And, I got such a nice pixie dust surprise when I checked my email this morning.  Teddyree at the marvellous blog The Eclectic Reader wrote such a truly lovely review.

Apropos of nothing, I love my spell check.  It makes me giggle every day; like a straight faced butler it tirelessly serves up proper grammar on a silver tray.  But, I do not think my affection is mutual.  My spell check gets fed up with my using words like beastie...

Jolene

You know when you hear a song and it plays through you all day?  Your mind drifts to it when you let go of your thoughts like a bright red, musical balloon that sails out of your hand on a summer day in a summer park.  I love that.  Ray LaMontagne's throaty, haunting Jolene won't leave me alone this week.  

It has been a wonderful week.  Writing and reading and writing and reading.  I am in that lovely flat place in the writing.  The grassy plain in the heartland of the story when you can guess where you are going.  The characters are speaking to each other and to me.  One wants baked alaska, another wants to sail on the Titanic.  I told him it was a terrible idea... Jolene, Jolene...

And on Friday I had tea with Philippa Gregory and she was just utterly marvellous.  More about that tomorrow...